Three-Minute-Thesis Competition - PhD theses explained in three minutes

Are you a PhD student at the University of Göttingen? Can you present the core message of your doctoral thesis in just three minutes? Can you explain your research to a group of lay people – in English? Then this is something for you!

The Graduate Schools and Alumni Göttingen are delighted to launch the call for the 2024 Three-Minute-Thesis (3MT) Competition.

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia.

Haven’t heard about it so far?

Göttingen’s PhD students already participated four times at the international Coimbra Group 3MT competition and three times they made it to the finals:

2017 Tanvi Butola (second prize in Edinburgh, GAUSS)
2019 Claudia Schmidt (winner in Krakow, GAUSS)
2020 Selina Bruns (runner-up virtually in Montpellier, GFA)

You can find the finalist on the Coimbra Group website.

In 2024 the Graduate Schools and Alumni Göttingen are hosting their own Three-Minute-Thesis format in the course of the universities alumni day according to the rules and judging criteria of the University of Queensland, inventor of the 3MT format.

How does it work?

The competition will be held on 16th November 2024 at the Assembly Hall on the Wilhelmsplatz 1 starting at 15:00.

The competitors will present their research within three minutes with a single static slide. A jury of one representative of the Public Relations Department, Alumni Göttingen and each Graduate School will decide on the ranking of all presentations. In addition, the audience will vote for their own favourite. So don’t forget to bring your colleagues and friends

Thanks to Alumni Göttingen prizes of in sum 850 € will be awarded for the two best ranked competitors and the audience's candidate or the three best ranked competitors if audience and jury vote for the same person.

How do you prepare? How do we prepare?

We are happy to announce that again we can offer a coaching for all PhD students, who will present on 16th November. The participation in the coaching is strongly recommended. In three preparatory sessions, which will take place on 15th + 24th October and 12th November 12:30 - 14:30, you will be able to discuss your three-minute presentation and to work on your slide design regarding its content and presentation. You will find out how challenging it is to present your PhD topic in just 3 minutes to a general, non-scientific audience with only one static slide. Competitors exceeding 3 minutes are disqualified.

How to participate?

Now you will probably want to know, where you can apply for the participation.

Please write an email until 23.09.2024 to your respective graduate school

and provide the following information.

Name
PhD programme
Working title of your thesis

Please note: By accepting to participate in the 3MT competition, contestants agree to have the videos of their presentations available via different chanels of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and Alumni Göttingen.

If you want to come as a guest to join this vibrant and cross-disciplinary event, mark it in your schedule.